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"The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones"
Joseph Joubert (via Grammar Girl newsletter [www.quickanddirtytips.com])
I’d say though, that the worst thing about old books is that they keep us from reading the new ones as well. It’s so hard to have your bases covered, especially when you’re a slow reader (like me), and started the classics late (like me). I wasn’t one of those girls who read Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairy when I was ten, I still haven’t read the former and only read the latter toward the end of high school. I’m a big fan of science fiction and when I was little I was also a fan of fantasy (though adult fantasy doesn’t seem to grip my attention as much), and so, with all of the classic science fiction a bit too grown up for me, I was stuck with new books. Don’t get me wrong, I loved pretty much every book I consumed, but it’s only been in the last two years that I have read Emma, and found a new genre to love - the classics. I’ve now read P&P, S&S, have Northanger Abby sitting on my shelf as the book after my next book, and have moved on to other authors with Wuthering Heights (please share with me what anyone loved about this book, apparently it’s a great romance… but…. I admit, I haven’t finished it, but SHE’S DEAD! How much more romance can there be?), and Asimov’s Prelude to Foundation (so slow, but interesting ideas). But since starting to read the classics, I have found countless books and authors that I’m missing out on that are new. Like Anathem, that I started but had to return to the library (slow reader, remember), and Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker and other steampunk advenures. When I finish the damn thesis, watch out library, I’m getting a 9-5 and from 5-9 I’ll be reading!! :-P
"…and that’s exactly how you make people forget - keep parsing the facts in half while folding in newer, harder to understand information until no one piece of data serves as a salient point anymore. Think of it as dispersant on a mental oil spill."
Excerpt from a blog about BP that I never got around to writing. (via jhnmyr)
one forty plus: Simple.
I wish that when I was younger I could have met my current self. We would have sat down at a coffee shop so that I could explain life to young me in terms that only we would understand. It would have saved me a lot of hardship. You can listen to all the sage wisdom you want, but things only make…
"You can’t travel through time, but you can send your thoughts and hopes into the future to camp out and wait for you to arrive there, where you’ll meet up and hug and decide that everything is alright again."
John Mayer
one forty plus: Just A Thought.
I believe that the BP oil spill could have even bigger ramifications on our country than we already realize. If this disaster exits the public consciousess without there being a 1:1 ratio of fault to accountability, then we as a nation will have demonstrated to our government (and the…
"I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone."
Mark Twain (1898)
We are all entitled to our opinions, but gee wiz! (Also, why not use her thigh bone, the femur is much stronger than the tibia… and creates a vivid recollection of 2001: A Space Odyssey!)
"To be honest, the seating wasn’t a great idea, John Mayer does have a couple of cruizy songs but all the young people just wanted to dance. it would have been better if it there were no seats, a nice big mosh pit and seating on the wings if people wanted to sit.
BUT there is no doubting that John Mayer was amazing, from his checkered pants to his roger federra do, his guitar playing was amazing, his voice was so damn sexy and his passion was obvious.
LOVED JOHN MAYER, wasn’t too hot about the seating arrangements.
Also, opening band Lisa Crawley and The Conversation were amazing, can they do their own show?
cheers.
Favourite moment: The paper airplane fail. The ENCORE!"
“Acoustics” at ticketmaster concert reviews
This was shot at Vector Arena, Auckland. I would like to draw your attention again to those amazing pants. Awesome adlib.
Introducing “Running Changes”… sharing the songwriting process on an even deeper level than I did during Battle Studies. I’m trying to forge a new sound along with a new album. Instead of rearranging the vocabulary I’ve already developed I want to establish an entirely new one to draw from. It takes a while. Lots of guess and check. I want to think like a new artist. DNA splicing on the fly. Running changes.
This tune sort of jumped out at sound check the other day and cast a little pinhole of light over the challenge. It’s not really a song so much as a template for something. I originally shot this video to have as reference to sing along and write to but thought it might be cool to share with you. I’ll sit over the next week and listen to it dozens of times, trying to sing the words and melodies that are hiding in it.
I’m going to make an effort to write on the road, something I’ve never done. I’d like to make the Summer tour a vehicle for playing new songs. Let you guys tape them, trade them, and maybe even sing along to tunes that weren’t even recorded in a studio yet.
Playing arenas and ampitheatres doesn’t have to mean showing up and doing an end zone dance. What if it were alive and organic and I played new tunes that were constantly changing and growing up each night? It would sure light a fire under my ass to write the best song I could, knowing I’d be bumping a surefire album track for it.
Playing to 20,000 people should feel like playing for 200, just with 19,800 more people looking in.
Thanks for giving me so much to sing about and the comfort of knowing I’ll have someone to sing them to when the time comes. I feel like I’m about to make my second first record.
JM
John Mayer
Yesterday I felt like I had been out all night drinking, except I didn’t have a huge thumping in my head. But the concert was well worth it. You know, I know all of the words to all of his (album) songs, but somehow hearing him say them in person really made me say “wow” - he is an amazing lyricist. So don’t be surprised if for a while all I quote is JM lyrics. In fact, I actually joined this Tumblr thing because John Mayer said it was cool and where he’d be online from now on, instead of twitter. It looks to me to be a much better blog-thing than blogspot or wherever I had my last attempt at blogging. This lets me just go “awesome link, posted!” rather than having to think of something to say. Anyhow, back to the concert, he had the best pants I’ve seen on anyone since Jack White in the White Stripes Auckland concert (at the St James, which has sadly been closed for a few years, brilliant venue by the way). In fact, they give Jack’s a run for their money. My only *sadface* was that he didn’t play Assassin, which is my favourite song from the new album. He played my tied-second place songs though - Heartbreak Warfare and Crossroads. I thought “maybe he played Assassin at Wellington and I SHOULD have put myself into great debt to get there…” but he didn’t. You know, if love could be based purely on admiration of creative ability, I’d have stalked John Mayer back to his hotel and proposed. Anyhow, I’d say that’s enough gushing. It really was the best concert I’ve ever been to, though I wont claim to have been to many (The Corrs, Ronan Keating, Brooke Frasier, The White Stripes, The Feelers, Killing Heidi, My Chemical Romance, plus the Summer Jam concerts for a few years, and Parachute). Will see him again no matter how much it costs. Just please don’t make me move to the US.
